Louise Withers Sloan Home - Presentation and Tour

Comments by Davidson Historical Society Vice President, Rachel Workman on September 28, 2025

Today we have the unique opportunity to take one last look inside a 125-year old house that has remained largely unchanged through the years before it moves on to its next phase of life and gets handed over to only its third owner.

This is largely due to the unusual fact that the home has only been owned by one family and in particular one person - Louise Withers Sloan or simply “Miss Louise” as she was known to most.

The home is a Queen Anne cottage-style framed dwelling of one and a half stories. A high hipped roof covers the main block of the building and has a projecting front-gabled wing, two projecting side gabled wings, a bay window dormer and a rear ell all extending out from it. The entire structure is still covered with its original pressed tin roof. The exterior of the house is weatherboarded and still has some of its decorative wood trim, including spindle work brackets and sawn brackets. The front porch retains its turned wood columns and balusters and sawn brackets.

This home was built around 1900 by James Lee Sloan Jr. “Jimmy Lee” and his wife Ida Withers Sloan. The marriage of Jimmy Lee and Ida in 1886 united two of the oldest families in the area and was quite the social event considering it was the first wedding to be held in the “new” Davidson College Presbyterian Church. The church building had recently been erected for the townspeople so that they had a place to worship separate from the college chapel. This church building was replaced in 1950 by the church we know now.

In fact the Sloan family is well known for helping the town of Davidson become what it is today. Jimmy Lee was one of the original investors in both the Linden Mill and the Delburg Mill, transforming Davidson from just a college town to a village which tripled in population from 1910 to 1920. In 1914 he built a 3-part brick commercial building next to what is now Kindred but was White Drug Company at the time. Jimmy Lee also served as Mayor of Davidson for 25 years, helped organize the Bank of Davidson and was postmaster at the time of his death in 1932.

When the Sloans moved into this home in 1900 they had two daughters, Marie Antionette Sloan and Louise Withers Sloan. Marie married in early 1909 and moved to Clarkton, NC with her husband George Currie. Their mother, Ida Withers Sloan, passed away shortly after in spring of 1909. When Jimmy Lee remarried the following year and ultimately built a new home on Concord Rd., this home was passed on to Louise and ultimately has been identified as her home ever since.

Miss Louise was more than just a resident of Davidson. She became, in the words of historian Mary Beaty, “something of a landmark herself, one of Davidson’s human institutions.”

She was well educated for her time: graduating from Peace College in Raleigh in 1910 and later receiving a degree from Duke University.

Despite her education and family wealth, Miss Louise lived an unusually frugal life. She was known to collect newspapers and magazines at the Davidson College library instead of subscribing. She resisted indoor plumbing until the town required it, and she gathered scraps, twigs, and discarded items around town to heat her home or repair things.

In fact, many residents would see her walking through Davidson at night, collecting what others threw away. Over time, these habits made her a local legend.

Miss Louise also became famous for attending nearly every wedding at Davidson College Presbyterian Church. Sometimes she wasn’t even invited, but townspeople came to expect her there. And in true Miss Louise fashion, she often left with her purse mysteriously filled with leftover food from the reception.

Stories like these weren’t told unkindly — they reflected how deeply she was woven into the fabric of Davidson life.

Louise never married, though she received at least one proposal. A letter found later in her life revealed a close relationship with William H. Richardson, a newspaper editor in Raleigh. Even so, she chose independence over convention, and that decision shaped much of her life.

In 1982, at the age of 91, Louise moved to Virginia to be near her niece, Ida Withers Currie (her sister Marie’s daughter). She lived to be 100 years old, passing away in 1992.

Miss Louise didn’t want to be remembered for her frugality though. Before her death, she requested her memorial be like a Davidson College Homecoming—festive, joyful, filled with friends, laughter, and stories.

But, it is in large part to her extremely conservative spending habits that this house has been preserved so well. Few improvements had been made over the years. In fact, the only change throughout the home’s first 90 years seems to be the addition of a kitchen and bathroom to the back of the home as well as the side porch added sometime after 1925.

Before Miss Louise’s passing, the home was sold to the town of Davidson in 1989 and then starting in 1992, rented to town attorney Richard Kline. Rick updated the original knob and tube wiring to modern electrical standards as well as updated the kitchen area to create an office and bathroom.

As for the rest, the original features are still maintained. They include:

• Flooring

• Ceiling

• Tin Roof

• Exterior and Interior Woodwork including interior trim and wainscotting

• Interior doors with doorknobs and hardware including wooden doorstops

• Front door including doorbell, doorknob and hardware

• Windows

• Four fireplaces and mantels- one in each of the original four downstairs rooms

  
  

An unusual feature of the house that I want to point out is the “eyebrow” window beside the upstairs dormer window on the back of the house. It’s a unique way to let in light and ventilation over the stairwell and was popularized in America in the second half of the 19th century by architect Henry Hobson Richardson.

Louise Withers Sloan was not just a resident of Davidson; she was Davidson in many ways. She embodied its history, its eccentricities, and its enduring spirit. There was no doubt that she loved this town and she loved her home.

In 2012, in a research paper on the historical significance of the house, Davidson College student Elizabeth Rohan summed it up nicely - “Like Miss Louise, the Sloan House stayed the same, while the world around her changed.”